Maison Ikkoku

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I'm finally finished the manga. It was great! Not perfect, here's my issues.
Everyone's an idiot. It made me beyond frustrated so many times. Not because I wasn't getting what I wanted in the story, but because it's just plain random easily solvable forced conflict derived from misunderstandings and often insane one in a million chance coincidences. They do this over and over. Now it's not like they don't have a reason to be upset over whatever problem they have, but there is a total lack of basic communication. Kyoko is a stubborn dumb lady who refuses to hear anyone's explanation. Godai is an idiot ... for jumping to conclusions over the tiniest things. Getting depressed and angry at Kyoko for shit she never did. This problem permeates the entire damn manga. Which made it pretty frustrating to read when these conflicts are happening.
That being said, it's always charming. The romantic moments is believable and cute. The characters are all so well developed and likeable (when Kyoko and godai aren't being idiots that is.) The presentation is excellent. The humor isn't laugh out loud funny but it's so endearing. The most important part is the ending. While it felt a little rushed, it's pretty satisfying and almost brought a tear to my eye. Everyone gets an ending that most will be satisfied with.. despite my gripes, I really enjoyed this and I'm excited to read more of Takahashi's work. 8/10 (edited)

Subjectivity matters most to me when rating anime. As a result, despite a lot of high praise and beloved ratings, in my eyes, this manga is only a 6/10. Due to its lack of character development and characters with much likability, lack of a satisfying build up of the main couple's relationship, and its nature to take an unnecessarily long time to reach a conclusion which could have been brought much sooner amongst more reasons, I could not help but notice these things and not enjoy it as much as every one else did. This works better as a slice of life manga than a ... romance, all things considered.

First off, this manga did have its good points and, to a degree, I agree with many of the praises given to this work. It handled the romance aspect well, it generally had the knack of being somewhat comedic with its misunderstandings and its main heroine is a character with a backstory which the readers could care for. The art of this manga is also pretty decent for its time, the details convey what they meant to and the characters are not ugly. Furthermore, this manga is one of the most influential works of its time, as it went on to influence many future works of other artists within this genre and brought upon many more beloved works to the industry which clearly resemble this original work to a certain extent. One of my favorite romance manga's ever was obviously inspired by this work, with many of its ideas clearly being borrowed by the creator and implemented onto their own. I have reasons to respect and appreciate this manga.

While the romance was handled well here, the main characters' relationship lacks convincing development and at some point gets repetitive. During the first 60 chapters of the manga, the buildup of their relationship was not done great. Godai meets Kyoko, and he instantly falls in love. For the rest of the manga, Godai was not given any development in regards to his love for Kyoko. Kyoko, on the other hand, only for the first 60 chapters gets any sort of romantic development with Godai. Even so, it was not convincing and without many reasons to believe that she has developed feelings for him, she later gets jealous when he is with other girls. From that point on, their romance gets repetitive and is still absent of any convincing development. Godai either gets into a misunderstanding with a girl, or is seen by Kyoko with someone else, and Kyoko gets jealous. Godai doesn't do or have to try much in an effort to win her, but eventually, she grows feelings for him anyway. The buildup is lackluster, and therefore, it did not give me the sense of satisfaction that would otherwise merit it a better score after I had read the conclusion. I agree, this series has a great conclusion, though it would have been much more satisfying had the relationship been done better.

Another major downside is in regards to its characters. None of these characters get much development, and there are not many reasons to fall in love with them either. Godai is the protagonist, and he bothers me because he is the same spineless, weak guy from beginning to end. However, through meeting Kyoko, he became a more hardworking man who is more worthy of her and I was happy to see it. This was nothing majorly redeeming, as it is the very least this character could grow and make him somewhat tolerable. Kyoko, similarly, is an undecisive character who is majorly responsible for stretching the series for so long. Also, as mentioned, she is unreasonably jealous and this is the case for most of the series. The only change to this character is that she eventually accepts that she can move on from her past relationship, and she loves Godai. Still, this took way too long, and I wished the author had done more to show that she learned to move on. The main characters aside, there is not much to love about the other characters, and the only one you should sorta feel bad for is the love rival of Godai. This guy is a much better man than the main character, and he is genuinely a good person. He also makes efforts to make her fall in love with him, unlike the protagonist. Other than that, the side characters do not get any development or are well written; they serve either to provide comedy, or to influence the main characters in some way.

All in all, this series works better as a slice of life than a romance. Along with the points mentioned above, this series is more comedic than romantic, and it's centered more around the characters' lives than anything else. Out of respect for its influence on future romantic comedies, I give this series a 6.

While not the worst manga I have ever read, Maison Ikkoku is certainly the manga I hate most. A seemingly unthinkable opinion given the reviews and recommendations that seem to drip of this work in buckets worth. Any and all of those reviews seem to take what I view as the reasons that this manga is a god awful piece of shit as reasons that it is amazing and wonderful, or give the manga a great rating while acknowledging how glaring these issues are. I'll try to cover them, and I can on some of them understand it is simple a difference of taste, but ... the majority is something I find completely insane and backwards. Almost as if I've gone into medieval times where burning people for a difference of belief is the norm. To briefly summarize my issues with the manga before I dive deep. With the exception of a child all characters are either seemingly irredeemable morons with little common sense, or parasites who leech off of those more misfortunate than themselves or too stupid to do something about it. Throughout 85% of the manga there is absolutely no progress, which would be fine if not for the mandatory progress a budding relationship requires. Now, with that said, I'll go into detail around mostly the story and more importantly the characters as those are the biggest issues. (Buckle up, this is going to be a big fucking rant)

First, the story. The story of Maison Ikkoku begins with a young college student in a rather run down boardinghouse of weirdos, managed by a young beautiful widow. The focus of the story seems to be said weirdos either abusing or exploiting that young college student by maliciously causing misunderstandings between said college student and the young widow. The object of his affection. The residents understand that this causes stress for an already stressed young adult who is pressured with school work, exams, and finances. To top it off, they decide to pile onto that finance issue by frequently forcing him to pay for alcohol or food. Something this student is too stupid to deny. Ignoring that, this young student goes about his days, daydreaming about the young widow. On occasion there are hints or progress or a half assed confession, but by the next chapter it is ignored and we've regressed basically to original start of the manga. The only notable progress in the first 140 chapters is that Godai, our young college student, and Kyoko the widow get to speak to each other more personally, as is the case with most people who live with one and other.

The other issue with the story is closely intertwined with character, but I'll do my best to separate them. Godai, our young idiot, frequently gets lucky with girls even though he isn't described as particularly attractive or desirable. The most prominent object of this luck is Kozue, a girl his age who is affectionate towards him. For those 140 chapters Kozue seems to be under the impression Godai reciprocates her feelings towards him and that they are a couple. Those 140 chapters span several years. And in those years our young moron meets her family as her boyfriend. This fucking idiot some how managed to knowingly date a girl for years without once mentioning he never intended to nor wants to be her significant other. How on Earth you accidentally date someone for years is beyond common sense and seems to be something other readers find hilarious, where as I find it depressing and down right cruel. Leading someone who loves you on for years when you have no intention of returning those feelings, regardless of the cliche funny moments, isn't comedy. It's cruelty.

Now to switch over to a more character focus, I'll individually complain, I mean analyze each character. I'll go from biggest cunt, to retard, to functioning person.

Biggest cunt and first character is Mitaka, Godai's rival for Kyoko. Mitaka is a few years older than Kyoko, in his mid to late twenties. He's handsome, tall, born rich, athletic and has the character you'd expect for a person born with a silver spoon in their ass, that also has had everything handed to them in life. From their luck with genetics to family money. Mitaka isn't a rival any reader that isn't a 14 year old girl who finds Mitaka 'dreamy or ideal' or a total cunt would ever root for. I can't be bothered to remember every individual interaction between him and other characters, but I'll pick on the ones that stick out most, after generalizing the majority. Mitaka puts on a nice guy face for Kyoko, a beautiful young widow who is in his residential tennis class, filled with young to middle aged mothers.

He focuses his affections on her for the majority of the series seemingly knowing nothing about her or her feelings regarding him. He constantly pressures her into dates or outings. The other characters he frequently interact with are Godai, and Ichinose, a short, fat, middle aged mother who lives at the bordering house with Kyoko and Godai. He largely ignores Ichinose (something, to be fair, I'd do as well given her personality) and frequently imposes his superiority complex onto Godai. He, and I quote, gets going on "cutting Godai down to size". What he means by that is whenever he manages to pressure Kyoko into doing something with him, he likes to wave it in front of Godai and watch his despair, and synthesize motivation from it. That quote comes from a chapter where he vehemently tells Godai he will not "let Kyoko fall into poverty by ending up with Godai". Yea, the cunt born into money and talent who's never truly worked a day in his life is getting off telling a moron who works for everything, where he's going to end up.

Next interaction that sticks out is the one where he gets Kyoko's family, who naturally adore a rich handsome man, to trick her into a dinner where he basically ends up kidnapping her. He takes to an out of the way fancy hotel restaurant, where he informs her he has a room. That he intends to get into her heart. Something he knows nothing about given his continued pursual. He even mentions he might 'force his way in'. Sounds like a rape threat to me, but I'll leave the interpretation of the man who just kidnapped a woman, took her to a hotel which she has no way of leaving but him, and informed said woman that he'd like to spend the night with her, to you. Few more complaints then we will move onto the next cunt. On the occasion where he kidnapped her, he encouraged her to drink more and more alcohol. Noting he'd 'be sober by morning'. Remember, this is the occasion he kidnapped her and noted his intention to sleep with her. Whether he intended to rape her, I will again leave to you. But I think it's fairly obvious given the fact he stated he intended to sleep with her that night, then continued to pile on drinks into her. Next he tried to guilt her into marrying him. Noting that 'no matter how she turns him down, it will be cruel, very cruel'. This seemingly largely implies he KNOWS she does not like him and is yet still pursuing her and forcing her into uncomfortable positions. Even when she's crying because she doesn't know how to turn him down he still does not relent. Oh, and did I mention he INTENTIONALLY ambushed Kyoko, her family, and her deceased husband's family at HIS FUCKING GRAVE, to curry favor with her family to further pressure her into a relationship with him.

The only reason he gives up is because his uncle arranges a marriage between him and a shy young, equally pampered rich girl. The reason he gives up is because he misunderstands, thanks to that annoying cunt housewife Ichinose, that he got her pregnant when he was drunk. When in reality he only kissed her (big deal to said girl, but almost nothing to him) and it was her dog who got pregnant thanks to his dog. He then, under the impression said fiance is pregnant, promised to marry her on the spot before confirming the second hand information that it was SHE who was pregnant. Then he 'gives up' on Kyoko because not even he is a big enough cunt (Debatable) to call off a planned wedding he promised to a young shy and overall good girl who for some reason (actually because her dogs like him and apparently dogs choose fiances) loves him. That, all in all, is Mitaka. Godai's rival. A pushy cunt and the worst character, IMO, of the series. He for the entirety of the series pissed me off and did not once do one good thing without having an ulterior motive. The only thing that can be interpreted as a genuinely 'good' act is him not calling off the marriage he agreed to once discovering the fiance was not pregnant. Which is not as much a good thing as it is just not a cunt thing.

Next character. Yotsuya. Godai's male, middle aged neighbour. A voyeur and an overall fucking creep. He breaks the wall inbetween his and Godai's room so he can sneak a peek and sneak in at his leisure. Constantly blackmails Godai, the young college student with financial issues, into buying food, alcohol and throwing parties in his room where he pays for said catering for him and the other cunty residents of the boarding house. Which I might add is not only a financial disturbance, but also an issue regarding sleep and study time for him, further negatively impacting Godai's life. Throughout the series Yotsuya has not ONCE done anything selfless. In fact every action or scene we see of him is manipulating others, mostly Godai, for his entertainment or benefit. He has LITERALLY (and I am actually properly using the word unlike most people who use it for emphasis) has not done one decent thing in the series. Even if he did, it's far outweighed by the general cunty behaviour he exhibits on a daily basis. This one is very short because there isn't much to say. He's a god damn parasite who leeches off a fucking student, a voyeur who spies on women, and a straight up cunt with even less redeeming features than Mitaka. The only reason Mitaka is higher on the cunt radar is because he implies rape, kidnaps and preforms what I would call psychological torment.

Onto Ichinose, the previously mention short, fat, mother housewife. She, like Yotsuya is a parasite draining money from Godai in the form of alcohol, food, and party. The only reason she's above him is because she doesn't blackmail Godai, and isn't a fucking creepy voyeur. She constantly neglects her child, and when on screen, is either intentionally or unintentionally causing mischief by repeating fractured or untrue information. Usually between Godai and Kyoko. Or is drunk and partying while neglecting her preschool age child. Who, as a housewife, is charged with caring for said child. Literally all she does in the series is get drunk on some else's dime, ignore her kid, and spread misinformation. Equally short an analysis because there is literally nothing else to her character. She's a goddamn disgrace of a mother and wife. And an overall cunt.

The next character is the last 'villainous' character. After her we move on from malicious cunts to fucking idiots. Akemi, a young beautiful waitress, who more often than not is not wearing enough clothing. She also, as all residents seem to do, get drunk on a student's dime. She is implied to sleep or at least date around with less than ideal members of society. She's a bit more complex than the previously mention absolute cunts, as she seemingly understands the feelings and tensions between Godai and Kyoko and on occasion (specifically the end, where she gives a pretty decent push to Kyoko towards Godai) helps them out. But overall can be regarded as a cunt who seems attracted to Mitaka because he's rich and handsome, also ignores his cunt tendencies. Drinks and parties on a student's dime in his room, with the other residents often disturbing him. Also, on ocassion, accuses said student of spying on her, which isn't true. I think it's obvious who it is, and even if it was Godai, it's not as if she doesn't walk around in the state she gets 'spied on' as of her own volition. Again a short review, as she's a fairly straightforward character. Still a cunt, but much less a cunt. Though that's only because of the one occasion she did something noticeably good.

Now, onto the fucking morons. First, our protagonist Godai. You should have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to say about him so this will also be pretty short, given all the details you gotten on him before. Well, let's start. He's a fucking idiot who manages to lead on a girl for years never once clarifying their relationship for fear "of hurting her" as if unwantingly dating her for several years and leading her to believe you love her when you don't, won't hurt more. He also, on occasion, almost gives into temptation and almost 'furthers' his 'relationship' with Kozue, if you catch my drift, despite not loving her, her loving him, AND him loving someone else. He lets his parasite cunt neighbours exploit him for money, alcohol and food. Constantly lets misunderstandings form between him and Kyoko and other women, and almost without exception fails to clarify them until major damage is done, if at all. Overall, more of an idiot than an asshole and stereotypical moron dude who thinks with his smaller head most times. I wouldn't call Godai a bad person, but I sure wouldn't want to be friends with him. Mostly because he lets people exploit him, never stands up for himself, lets misunderstandings flourish and is an overall fucking idiot. The good things about him are he seems to have good intentions, though he never fucking acts on them. And whether it be because he loves her or realizes objectively what a fucking cunt Mitaka is, tries to keep that superficial fucking asshole away from Kyoko.

Next, the main heroine, and fellow idiot, Kyoko. The beautiful widow. Bet you're surprised she's in the fucking moron category. Let me explain. She, like Godai, but to a lesser extent (mainly because Mitaka is a fucking creepy moron who realizes this but continues to push on) somewhat leads on Mitaka. Well, less lead on, and more never tells him to fuck off. This can be interpreted as her being shy or worried about hurting him, but hey, he's a fucking danger to society who ambushes families at graves to curry favor. So I don't think she should be worried about his feelings as much as her safety. Given that he's pressured her into many things and basically kidnapped her on one occasion. Now, ignoring Mitaka because half of that issue isn't her fault. We move onto Godai. While she often assists Godai whether that be by removing the aforementioned fucking parasites from him, albeit temporarily. She also gets unreasonably angry whenever a situation with Godai and another women (Often Kozue, and often a misunderstanding Godai wants no part of). Which is completely fucking ridiculous because she NEVER ONCE clarified her feelings for him, or officially recognized her and Godai to be in any sort of romantic relationship. Yea, I get that it's uncool for a guy who implies and even on occasion says he loves you to seemingly be with other women, but what fucking right do you have to be angry when you A) do the same fucking thing which a rich creepy cunt, and even at times agree to a date with said creepy fuck to spite Godai and B) are not in a formal relationship with him. All in all, I don't truly hate Kyoko, but I sure wouldn't want anything to do with such an unreasonable woman. I think the only reason people find her desirable is A) Her obvious ridiculous good looks, and B) She never 'puts out' and has a very reserved and generally nurturing calming appearance. If you removed her looks, odds are, most people wouldn't give a damn. Yes, she has some good points, and if I had to give her an outright good or bad rating, no middleground, I'd give her good. I personally think she's not someone I'd want anything to do with, and lets her emotions rule her more than she should.

Now, onto the final individual character who is an actual reasonable person, and neither a cunt nor moron. The sole main character of the series to be so is, Ichinose... Kentarou. The cunty housewife's gradeschool child. A fucking child is the only main character of the series who is not a complete lunatic. He all in all is 'average' kid. He's selfish at times, but given his surroundings, at other times is surprisingly mature. He often tries to get his bitch mother to stop getting drunk. He views Yusaka and Kyoko as some of the few ALMOST sane people in that boarding house, which I agree with. He doesn't have many positive or negative interactions, and is mostly a neutral character that illustrates how much of a failure at parenting his mother is. Overall he is the only character I can describe as a functioning person.

There are other possibly reasonable characters, but they don't appear enough to make a concrete call on that. Such as Ichinose's husband, Godai's friends, family, Etc, etc. All in all, the lack of decent (in both quality of creation and values), interesting characters who actually show progress or provide entertainment, and nonexistent story lead this to be my most hated manga. The main couple aren't a couple for 90% of the series and are even in 'pseudo' relationships for the majority of the series. They show little progress with each other, and are surrounded by fucking malicious cunts, and themselves are so goddamn stupid, they should have to wear a neon vest with a dunce cap and provide cards certifying how stupid they are. The surrounding main characters, (Boarding house residents, Mitaka, etc) are so plainly manipulative, parasitic and outright cunts with seemingly no redeeming feature I can't view any interactions of them with the story or main characters as anything other than sad. Again, the series is basically about a mentally handicapped college student, who is constantly exploited by his housemates, and loves a jealous widow with little commonsense, who is chased by a fucking creepy handsome rich guy.

I do find the ending of this series rather favorable as I do, generally, prefer 'happy' endings. But this ending felt very superficial and obvious. As if everything that happened was a sure thing. It also didn't do closure very well, regarding the main couples 'rivals' but whatever. Not going to complain about such small issues in the face of the giant raging monstrosities that are the characters and majority of the story. Overall, I argue that this manga is objectively a 2 / 10 given it's characters are fairly flat and display no progress. The main story relies and cliche situations that often derive 'comedy' at another's expense, and the near entirety of the story could be summarized as and avoided if not for misunderstandings. All in all, I fail to call this a comedy, or romance, more of a big clusterfuck of misunderstandings, jealousy, idiocy, and cunts. If you've got time to kill and want to hate yourself and fictional characters, I wholeheartedly recommend this series, otherwise drop this shit harder than the plague dropped medieval Europe's population.